Watch this beautiful NASA footage of a solar flare eruption

The sun pulled off a beautiful stunt on Wednesday, and NASA’s Solar Dynamics Observatory caught it on camera.

The footage, released on NASA’s YouTube account, shows the sun emitting a mid-level solar flare.

Solar flares are bursts of radiation on the sun’s surface. While flares are relatively common — ranging in frequency from several a day to once a week depending on how active the sun is — the naked eye can’t detect them. To see the stunning occurrence, you need telescopes, space x-rays and thermal imaging equipment.

Wednesday’s flare is classified as an M6.5. M-class flares are medium-sized flares, ten times weaker than the most powerful flares, X-class flares.